Bearded dragon and possible seizure :(

:? Hello My name is candy I have 2 bearded dragons,,,I been getting crickets from this store and not sure if they been feeding them properly (the crickets) but He has been having seizure like symptoms dragging his limb and shaking ,,his eyes looks droopy ,,,he has a 20 gallon tank with a UVB light and a basking light ,,he seems to be doing better since i been giving him crickets with ReptoCal on them but i dont know of there is something else i can do for him cause i dont wanna lose another beardie, i been offering him some water and soaking him water to make sure he is hydrated i been giving him carrots radishish and spinach (but he wont eat that ) he is about 2 and a half months old and about 6 inches long he does drink a very little water when offered and i spray him too ,,he has a climbing tree that i also bought from the store its a hiding space and tree all in one ,, Im new and not sure how to add a picture of the tank to show you ,,oh and i keep his cage bout 90 to 100 degrees and cool about 80 ,,am i doing something wrong please help me Thank You

what are you measuring the temps WITH? a stickon, digital, temps gun, analog [dial things]?
are the 2 housed together? or do you only have 1 now? [you mentioned you lost one, ]
what BRAND of UV light are you using [look on the bulb]? how close can he get to it? how long is it?
have you seen a vet? gotten a fecal?
those aren't good veggies [thou they aren't a huge part of his diet yet] look at this list:http://home.comcast.net/%7Eholachapulin/Nutrition.html
What is his substrate [on the bottom of the tank? if it is anything particle, PLEASE remove it and use papertowels for now.
Dusting schedule they should be on: Rep-Cal calcium 5X a week and herpvite [multivitamin] 2X a week. offer them dusted crix twice a day. make sure the crix are no bigger than the space btwn his eyes.
Order crix online. i prefer grubco.com petstore crix are notorious for unhealthy insects. how are you gutloading your crix?

do you have any pics you can upload [photobucket.com or imageshack.us] and show us? i would look at the care sheets on this site and answer our questions so we can help you. twitching and paralyzation are symptoms of impaction, MBD, etc. Please find a good, HERP vet, even if you have to drive a ways.

soaking and keeping him hydrated is a good idea. i would do it daily in warm to the touch water. make sure you plan on a 70-90gal tank and the setup, once in improved conditions, he will grow FAST.

We Have a Flucker Thermometer (for reptiles) its round ,We lay it on the places they lay the most ,,, Yes I do house my beardies together ,,,and yes i did have one that passed away I did not know they had to have a UBV light and i think he died of calcium definicency omg i was heartbroken (felt like i killed him) There Uvb light is 18 inches long they can get like 2 inches to 10 inches away depending where they lay Its a Repti glo 8.0 UVB 15 w Exo Terra light ,, another question ,,do you think a heating rock would be good i have heard bad storys bout them burning there tummys cause it got to hot ,,,,,,another thing is sometimes his belly blows up like hes holding his breath than it goes down when he relaxes ,,he is eating little crickets 1/2 inch ,,and i have been usin ReptoCal to dust them in but i just found out about doing that ,,,thats why i thought this might be calcuim problem and i tryed calling our one vet and they were closed this all started thursday after a bad snow storm we had and i was snowed in so couldnt get him there till now I will try to get a picture downloaded as soon as possible so you can see my little babys Ty for all your help and that chart ,,,ekkkkkkkk @ them aint good foods i heard carrots and spinach and radishes were ty again

ok....well, lets start at the begining...baby bearded dragons are very delicate creatures, but if you can set them up properly, they are extremely hardy.

First off, its important you separate the babies....housing beardies together causes a multiple of problems...I have included below a short "article" I wrote on why its not a good idea.

If these are going to be your first beardies I would start keeping just one, or keeping two, but keeping them separately. There are a number of different reasons why this is a good idea...

1. Dominance Aggression/Stress: Many people make the mistake of assuming that aggression is displayed only through head bobbing, throat puffing, and physical attacks, but this is incorrect. While its true that these are SOME of the ways that dominance/aggression can be shown there are other, subtler, and probably more dangerous (because they can be harder to notice) ways. Usually when two beardies are housed together, even females, one of them will be more dominant than the other one, the more dominant one will usually take the best basking spots and the most food. Getting less food and taking second best basking spots chronically will become stressed; chronic stress will lead to failure to grow and thrive and parasite infections. Even if the more dominant beardie doesn't "take" the most food, their presence will often lead to the less dominant one not eating us much. A good analogy is to imagine you are back in school, you are sitting down, about to eat your lunch and the class bully plops down right next to you to eat his lunch...you are probably going to lose your appetite. Right? Now what if that happened every day? Sometimes if the two are together the more dominant one will bask sitting on top of the less dominant one, many people will mistake this as a sign of affection, and think that the BD's are friends, but its actually a sign of dominance. The biggest issue with dominance aggression is that it leads the other beardie to always be stressed, and over time this will cause his immune system to falter and will allow for parasites to multiply in the system. You will often hear people say they have had two beardies together for some time with no problems and then one of them grew much bigger while the other stayed smaller...this is typically what happens, if they are not separated and treated the smaller one will usually end up dying.

2. Physical Aggression: Not much needs to be said about this, physical aggression is when they actually fight. Chasing, biting, scratching etc. Obviously this leads to drastic problems such as stress, infections and lost limbs. Sometimes beardies will appear ok with each other for months or even years and then one day they begin finding.

3. Positive Sex Identification: This is a problem that frequently gets over looked when people consider putting two dragons together. Dragons cannot be sexed 100% until they are close to a year of age. Educated guesses can be made, but without probing there is no sure fire way to tell. There are a few problems that can arise from this. If you get two baby beardies and house them together and they turn out to be a male and a female and you don’t notice in time they will probably mate, and probably when they are two young. Mating when they are too young causes serious problems for the female, producing eggs takes a lot of nutrients and energy...energy that young dragons need to be using to grow. Young dragons that are bred are more likely to get sick or become egg bound or have other problems related to reproduction. If it turns out they are two males, the beardies may be able to tell before you do and you could come home one day to find they have been fighting. It’s possible that one may even kill the other.

3. Disease, spreading and identifying: Another issue when dragons are housed together is disease. First and most obvious, if one dragon gets sick, its housemate is going to get sick also and then you will have two dragons to treat, not just one. Also, say you come home one day to find a suspicious looking poo (smelly, runny, and nasty) or some vomit, there is no way to tell which dragon is having a problem, unless you can constantly observe them. Or, how do you tell if they are both defecating? If one dragon was to become impacted (or has another issue causing constipation) you may not be able to tell until it’s too late. You will still be seeing fecals, but will be unable to tell which dragon they belong to. Also, one early symptom of disease is lack of appetite, when beardies are housed together its harder to tell who is eating how much. This is especially true if you keep veggies in the tank constantly, or often. You may set out the salad, walk off, come back later and find it all eaten...but who has eaten it? There is no real way to tell, you may not notice one dragon isn't eating until you see significant weight loss.

5. Space: This is another big one. More than one beardie means you have to double or triple the space. For one adult beardie the minimum cage size would be a 55gallon (although 75-90 is ideal). If we are talking aquarium gallons, a 125g is the smallest I would ever consider housing two beardies in.

There are other reasons as well why its not such a good idea, but these are a few of the biggies. I am not saying that it cannot be done, but it presents a whole new world of issues to deal with. Keeping multiple beardies is best left to the experts, or at least those who have a bit more experience with beardies. People with more experience may be able to identify potential problems quicker and intervene before a problem becomes serious. If multiple beardies are housed together you should definitely wait until they are adults that are proven females, if you buy two babies keep them separate until they are full grown and then maybe work on integrating them. And always, always, always have a second enclosure available should you need to separate them.

Personally, I wouldn't take the risk. Beardies are awesome lizards but they are definitely a handful and caring for two in the same enclosure just makes it that much trickier.

Separating the beardies is the first step to improving their health, by diminishing stress. If you cannot afford, or do not have the space for two set ups then its probably best to return one to the store where you got it.

Now...on to imporivng your babies health!

First of all...

Its very important that baby beardies can get into a basking spot of bright white concentrated hot light, the basking spot needs to be 100-110 degrees. To measure this, you need to be using a digital thermometer of some sort, you can either buy a indoor/outdoor one with a probe from walmart for $6, or you can order a temp gun offline at www.tempgun.com. Any type of stick on or dial thermometer has a high risk of being very inacurate. The probe has the added benefit of allowing you to be mobile and check temps all over your beardies tank.

If the temps are low, or the light qualitiy is low it can cause lethargy, and most importantly it disrupts the metabolic process of calcium absorbtion....a form of Nutriontional secondary hyperparathyroidism (NSHP)...which is commonly called metabolic bone disease (MBD), its a form of condition similar to what your first dragon died of...in that both dragons calcium absorbtion processes are disrupted.

The fact you have a UVB light is excellent! and will greatly help your beardie, for sure.

Another area that could be ailing in your dragon is with its feeding. First of all, is the size of the prey larger than the space between your dragons eyes? How big is your dragon...hatchlings should be eating very tiny crickets. If too large of a prey item is eaten, it can cause an impaction to press against the spine and cause nerve damage to the limbs. If this could be the case, warm water soaks (water of 100degrees) will help. Also check out the beardie care sheets on this page, Cheri has a great one about impaction that walks you through step by step. Do you feed your beardie other insects than crickets? Some items carry a higher risk of impaction than others.

You mention that you do not know if the pet store is feeding the crickets properly. Its important to properly feed your crickets, or your beardie is eating empty food. Its really easy to set up a small cricket tank to keep and feed them at your house. Websites like www.drgecko.com have good instructions on how to set them up...or you can ask us.

You mentioned you were not supplementing up until now...that could have a large part to do with it as well. You need to be supplementing all food items with pure calcium (such as rep-cal or jurrasi-cal) at the moment, and you need to also be using a multivitamin with D3 (such as jurrasi-vite) 3x weekly. Lack of proper calcium causes problems such as twitching and seizures.

Dehyration in babies is an overall concern regardless, make sure to keep your dragons hydrated by soaking them as close to daily as possible.

How big are your dragons...this is very important,,...

I would first try adjusting your husbandry, and if you see any more symptoms you should go to a vet...sometimes stronger calcium supplements such as Neocalgucon are needed. If it is an impaction....you will need to work with the baby to pass it.

One thing i forgot...no, dont get a heat rock, they are very dangerous. If it turns out your baby is impacted, an under tank heater (heat pad) with a thermostat or dimmer will need to be used in order to help pass it. Other than that, beardies don't need any under belly heat, as they do not regulate heat through their stomachs and can burn easily....

My babies are about 6 inches and 5 inches long There about 2 1/2 months and they eat the little bitty crickets 1/2 inch,,,He hasnt had a seizure in 2 days wohooooo he looks better today,,He hasnt lost his appetite yet Thank Godness !!! I have been soaking them in the sink with water and usin a towel on bottom of the sink so they have something to hold on as well as me (but they dont like it very much yet) I understand what you are saying about housing them together I never thought about us not knowing who is havin bowel movements ,,we do watch them eat till all crickets are gone when we feed them and we taking them out of there cage to make sure they both get enough cause I was told it cause less fighting over there food if we do it that way and I was told just leave veggies and fruits in there cage ...One question I have do you think they may go under stress being they been housing since we got them we bought them together in the same cage so not sure how long they been together ? Im not sure what there weigh is but I do have a little scale (we used for our baby cockitiels so I will have to weight them ,,,I wanna thank you for your time on answering me means alot and YES they are alot of work but I love my beardies

One question I have do you think they may go under stress being they been housing since we got them we bought them together in the same cage so not sure how long they been together ?

Im afriad i dont understand what your asking. If you are asking if your beardies could be stressed, then definately yes, with all babies its important for them to be housed separately. Especially babies, si9nce they need to be growing and putting all their energy towards that, and not towards competing with another beardie. Of course, the other big issue with babies is you dont know their sexes, and unless you separate them they will breed too young (if its a male and female) and that could be really dangerous for the females health.

If you are asking if its possible that being together is NOT stressing them, because they have always been together, well, reptiles are not like other animals. They are completely different, right down to their body language, and how to read what it means. Even beardies raised together can stress each other out, they dont understand "sibling" type bonds or anything, that make them recognize another beardie as a brother or friend.

One other thing i forgot to mention....if you got them from a petstore, its pretty likely they are related, this is important as if they turn out to be male and female you must never allow them to breed as the babies will be inbred.

Its excellent your beardie hasn't had a seizure in two days...keep up the soaks...

Did you make the other changes in husbandry such as looking into setting up crickets, checking the temps, and getting a better thermometer?